Upgrade to the Balcony!

Dad came over this weekend and we got to work laying my new floor tiles on the balcony!! Now, for the record, you need permission to make permanent changes to the balcony floors in my condo building. But these tiles actually are not secured directly to the floor so I didn't need to get permission, which is always nice!

I used these Neo tiles that we had picked up for $30 each at Costco. We had bought 5 boxes, thinking that we only needed 4. However, as you will find out, that did not work. Neither of us could figure out I mismeasured so bad! The balcony is a super awkward shape so I don't take full blame. They never covered this shape in grade 6 math!

See? It's crazy

Old drawing of the layout

Dad did all of the cutting (for the notched pieces he used a hand saw and for the angled cuts he used a power saw). We only screwed up the first piece and from then on we got a good flow going! My job was placing tiles (they fit into each other) and I also removed and replaced a bunch of little screws in the bottom as we went. All in all, it took us under 3.5 hours. In another 30 minutes we could have finished the whole balcony, but we ran out of tiles!

First part done!

Neither us could figure it out, but somehow we were a few tiles short. We could have MacgGyvered it, using the leftover pieces, but we thought it best to just try an pick up another box and do it the right way. See, the pieces fit together using plugs and holes and when you cut an angle, one piece will have the plugs on it and the other will have the holes, so you can't just flip the triangle pieces around because then it will be both holes and they won't snap together!

I also have a few small triangle pieces that need to be glued to connect to the pieces next to them because there was no way to attach a plastic backing that would line up correctly with the pieces beside.

I should also point out here that Dad did cut the tiles right to the edge of the windows/doors. It looks like there is a one inch gap, but it is actually a bump of some sort of sealant? Tile couldn't fit over it so we just cut up to it. You can also see all of our leftover pieces in the corner here! If Dad can't find more of the tiles, these are the ones we have left to conjigger into the gaps.

Low point of the day: Dad and I finished as much as we could before we ran out of pieces and it was 1:00pm so I deemed it time for lunch and ordered Swiss Chalet for lunch. We noticed a Sikh parade was starting down my street (even though Dad had checked and we thought there weren't supposed to be road closures today!). By 2:00pm our chicken still hadn't shown up, so I called Swiss Chalet. Turns out the driver had come but my concierge wouldn't let him in!! And he tried calling me, but he had the wrong phone number. And by the time I called the parade had picked up so Swiss wasn't delivering anymore :(. I was so sad and had to feed my poor hardworking father a lousy chicken sandwich and ice cream. And THEN he was stuck at my place until 4:00pm because the parade messed up traffic!

Lesson learned: avoid all parades when doing home renovation and always have a back up plan for feeding your staff. Haha. However, watching the police try to direct traffic around a parade is pretty good lunch entertainment.

Anyway, Dad has also brought my new chairs for the patio!! I still need to get cushions for them, along with needing a whole lot of plants and accessories so we aren't done out here yet. But the difference is HUGE already!

Before:

  

After!:

So far I am loving the tiles! They were fairly easy to cut (according to Dad) and they look great. They are very comfortable under foot and clean up well. They also shouldn't fade or scratch easily.